Posts Tagged ‘board of directors’
Twitter Allegations: Begin at the Top
Corporate compliance and audit professionals might want to clear your schedules. The former head of security for Twitter has published a stunning whistleblower complaint against the company, alleging all manner of security failures at the social media giant — and that management then lied to the board and regulators about the severity of the problems. …
Read MoreUSAA Settlement: Board-Level Reforms
Before we forget, compliance professionals should take a look at the enforcement action banking regulators imposed on USAA last week. It’s a fascinating look at how regulators are trying to pressure corporate boards and senior executives to take compliance risks more seriously. What happened? The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and FinCEN hit…
Read MoreTesla’s Governance Issues Keep Coming
Compliance officers, today we all owe a thank you to California state labor regulators. Why? Because we’re always looking for examples of poor corporate governance to discuss, and those regulators served up a stunner at the end of last week: Tesla. You may have already heard the basics. Last Thursday the California Department of Fair…
Read MoreSEC’s Interesting Remediation Example
The Securities and Exchange Commission published a press release Friday afternoon that compliance professionals should welcome: news that a tech startup mired in financial fraud will not pay any monetary penalties, thanks to the company’s extensive cooperation and remediation. We rarely see an announcement like this, where the SEC’s principal point is to discuss its…
Read MoreA Messy Picture for Risks in 2022
Consulting firm Protiviti recently published its annual survey of enterprise risks worrying corporate leaders for the coming year. As always, the survey is worth a look so you can decipher what might be on the minds of your board and C-suite, and then anticipate the ways they’ll likely exasperate you over the next 12 months.…
Read MoreOzy Media’s Governance Flop
You may have missed this, but last week a media business with oodles of funding from Silicon Valley closed up shop because of flawed leadership behavior that culminated in accusations of fraud. Which gives us yet another opportunity to talk about the importance of board governance to keep leaders’ ethical conduct correct. The media business…
Read MoreSEC Commish Talks ESG, Board Governance
SEC commissioner Allison Herren Lee delivered a speech Monday forcefully laying out the need for corporate boards to take ESG risks and disclosures seriously, presumably as a prelude to whatever enhanced ESG disclosure rules the Securities and Exchange Commission will adopt sometime later this year. Lee, who has spoken about ESG issues numerous times and…
Read MoreCitigroup, Part III: Better Board Oversight
Today we return to Citigroup and its $400 million regulatory settlement from earlier this month, a case that offers a cornucopia of lessons for risk and compliance professionals. This time around, we consider what Citi’s board will need to do to rectify the bank’s poor internal governance. First, let’s recap the case so far. The…
Read MoreJerry Falwell and CEO Oversight
The Lord works in mysterious ways, and compliance professionals witnessed that again this week. The Supreme Being sent us a flock of governance lessons to consider from the downfall of Jerry Falwell Jr., who just resigned as president of Liberty University amid a sex scandal. Falwell had been leader of the evangelical college since 2007.…
Read MoreInvestigations, Governance, and Romance
Heartbreaker of a tale unfolding at the Romance Writers of America this week: a misconduct complaint filed against the head of the RWA’s ethics committee has backfired, leading to a revolt of the group’s membership, half the board resigning in protest, and the organization’s flagship event canceled for 2020. Ethics and compliance professionals should give…
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